>Poisoning a few watersheds in Asia for lithium and cobalt is far preferable to continued oil and coal extraction.

Seems very cynical and reductive..."a few watersheds"... if one was to replace the ravenous need of workers for privacy in new electric cars...seems like a lot of lithium... here's hoping for fast development of solid state batteries...

but also, isn't it often a case of cost as in how cheap corporations can bilk poorer countries and their political class of important resources...? higher prices/legislation could be a way to force innovation to develop alternative extraction methods...geothermal extraction https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/geothermal-lithium-its-extrac...